Inbound marketing makes it easier to convert customers, but easy doesn't mean automatic. After your content, social media, and other inbound tools bring the interested prospect to your virtual doors, you need a clear strategy to get them across the finish line. Remember, these are people who have already demonstrated some level of interest in what you have to offer. Optimizing your conversion path is the best way to stoke that interest into a relationship.

Your conversion rate is a simple, instructive metric, calculated by dividing leads generated by total website visits. If you use Hubspot's marketing dashboard, you can get a quick idea of how other businesses are performing. The median conversion rate is at .9%, while the top 25% of businesses check in at 3.1% or above. You should be aiming for a rate of 3% or higher, and we've got 3 proven strategies for maximizing inbound marketing conversion rates to help you get there.

Optimize Your Conversion Path for Consistency

When we analyze conversion path, we're really looking at the last few steps in the conversion process, starting with your call to action. The call to action lands in the body of the content, once you've already established value, and encourages the prospect to take the next step. Your CTA leads to a landing page where the customer can sign up for your offer, and successful sign-ups are lead to a “thank you” page for signing up. The first step toward optimizing your conversion path is establishing consistency throughout.

• Your landing page and CTA are tightly connected, and should look the part. Use similar images, colors, fonts, and language, so that prospects always feel a logical progression from one page to the next.

• Your offer should also be presented in clear, consistent terms from one page to the next. Again, the prospect should always feel like they're right where they're supposed to be.

Minimize Distractions on Your Landing Pages

It's always wise to remember that your prospect probably has your landing page opened in a browser window next to 5 or 10 other tabs. If you want your offer to resonate, you need to keep distractions to a minimum. Big distractions are fairly easy to avoid, but there are plenty of subtle elements you can remove to improve your conversion rate,

• Your navigation bar is usually a helpful, vital feature for site visitors, but you'll want to leave out the links when creating a landing page. Once the prospect clicks through to a landing page, you want them focused only on your offer.

• Each element of your landing page should encourage visitors to move forward to the next. Your headline entices them to read your copy, and your copy motivates them to accept your offer.

• Try to limit forms to only the information you need to generate a strong lead. Every extra field gives the prospect one more opportunity to second-guess their decision.

Use A/B Testing to Optimize Your Landing Pages

A/B testing is a great way to improve many elements of your online presence, and it fits especially well with landing pages. The process is simple – create 2 versions of the same landing page, then test them against one another. In addition to finding out which of the 2 is preferred, testing will give you an opportunity to take a broader look at what works and what doesn't for your landing pages as a group.

• This type of testing doesn't require a huge investment of time and resources. You can get started with a quiet place, 2 versions of a page, and a small group of test-takers.

• The little things matter. Remember that you want to test the elements that make up the landing page, and not simply which page is better on the whole.

• As you progress, you might decide that you want to try more rigorous testing and aim for a larger sample. Having an established process in place will make it much easier to scale things up when the time comes.

Trends change quickly online, and optimizing your conversion rates requires a real commitment over time. The key to remember is that you can test everything, from the wording of your CTAs to the distraction level and visual appeal of your landing pages. Every bit of data you gather will help you to better understand your prospects, and generate the insight you need to maximize your inbound marketing conversion rate.